16 Dec Another Victim of Trafficking won’t be homeless this Christmas

A High Court judge has granted permission for a judicial review of the Home Office’s decision to evict a victim of trafficking from a safe house and on to the streets. In doing so, the judge extended an injunction forcing the Home Office to continue to accommodate our client until the final hearing of the case, which is likely to be in the first half of 2016.

This is the first legal challenge to a decision to refuse to extend safe house accommodation, and will look at the legality of the government’s treatment of victims of trafficking who – despite being recognised by the Home Office as victims, meaning that they are likely to be at risk of retrafficking – are often evicted from safe house accommodation with nowhere to go. This breaches their human rights and international law. If successful, the case will establish that the government and its sub-contractors cannot evict someone without ensuring that they no longer need support and assistance to recover from their experiences and be protected from retrafficking.